Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume I, Part 1: 1835-1866 eBook

XXVIII

PILOTING AND PROPHECY

Those who knew Samuel Clemens best in those days say
that he was a slender, fine-looking man, well dressed—­even
dandified—­given to patent leathers, blue
serge, white duck, and fancy striped shirts. Old
for his years, he heightened his appearance at times
by wearing his beard in the atrocious mutton-chop
fashion, then popular, but becoming to no one, least
of all to him. The pilots regarded him as a great
reader—­a student of history, travels, literature,
and the sciences—­a young man whom it was
an education as well as an entertainment to know.
When not at the wheel, he was likely to be reading
or telling yarns in the Association Rooms.

He began the study of French one day when he passed
a school of languages, where three tongues, French,
German, and Italian, were taught, one in each of three
rooms. The price was twenty-five dollars for one
language, or three for fifty dollars. The student
was provided with a set of cards for each room and
supposed to walk from one apartment to another, changing
tongues at each threshold. With his unusual enthusiasm
and prodigality, the young pilot decided to take all
three languages, but after the first two or three
round trips concluded that for the present French
would do. He did not return to the school, but
kept his cards and bought text-books. He must
have studied pretty faithfully when he was off watch
and in port, for his river note-book contains a French
exercise, all neatly written, and it is from the Dialogues
of Voltaire.

This old note-book is interesting for other things.
The notes are no longer timid, hesitating memoranda,
but vigorous records made with the dash of assurance
that comes from confidence and knowledge, and with
the authority of one in supreme command. Under
the head of “2d high-water trip—­Jan.,
1861—­Alonzo Child,” we have the story
of a rising river with its overflowing banks, its
blind passages and cut-offs—­all the circumstance
and uncertainty of change.

Good deal of water all over
Coles Creek Chute, 12 or 15 ft. bank
—­could have gone
up shore above General Taylor’s—­too
much drift....

Night—­didn’t
run either 77 or 76 towheads—­8 ft. bank
on main shore
Ozark Chute....

And so on page after page of cryptographic memoranda.
It means little enough to the lay reader, yet one
gets an impression somehow of the swirling, turbulent
water and a lonely figure in that high glassed-in
place peering into the dark for blind land-marks and
possible dangers, picking his way up the dim, hungry
river of which he must know every foot as well as
a man knows the hall of his own home. All the
qualifications must come into play, then memory, judgment,
courage, and the high art of steering. “Steering
is a very high, art,” he says; “one must
not keep a rudder dragging across a boat’s stern
if he wants to get up the river fast.”